Rogue-like

Xong is an odd and idiosyncratic munge of a Rogue-like, a level-based puzzle game, and an Arkanoid clone. It's Rogue-like, in that it's an ASCII graphics game with procedurally-generated levels, but the actual gameplay is puzzle solving with Breakout-like aspects.

Elona is a Japanese-developed Rogue-like with a nice tileset and considerable depth for a one-man project. As you might expect, it has graphics reminiscent of 8-bit JRPGs; there's a fair bit of NPC dialog, some of which is moderately humorous, although you do run into the occasional Japlish.

The UI is a bit confusing -- it's entirely key-driven, but with pop-up menus and odd key choices for selection and navigation. However, Rogue-like "hot-keys" give you access to the most common options, and while the tutorial doesn't tell you about them, as with most Rogue-likes the "?" key is your friend.

The Dungeon of D is a "print-and-play" (PnP) game, meaning it's not available for sale, but instead you can download PDFs of the components and print them out to make your own copy. In other words, it's an amateur rather than a professional production, but it's worth remembering that "amateur" has its roots in the Latin "amare" (to love); that is, an amateur does what he does for love, not for money. While its rare for any amateur product to reach or exceed professionally-produced products, it can and does happen -- as it has with this game.

I'll say right off the bat that this game is awesome, and if you don't download and love it I'll think less of you as a person. But I digress. Ahem, every nerd's gotta grow up someday. In time superhero comics transmute to Alan Moore graphic novels, and after a while DBZ VHSs metamorph into Evangelion DVDs. Today I'm going to ask you to take the next leap, the next step in your nerd evolution: play a Rogue-like. It sounds daunting, I know, I've been there. I tried playing Nethack when I was a lad of 15 and I just got baffled. There weren't any graphics to speak of, I died roughly every minute, and there were ten different ways to drop your items. Shit got confusing. I felt there was something amazing lurking underneath though, so ever since Derek Yu popped my procedurally-generated cherry with his little cave game I've been wanting a Rogue-like fix. DoomRL admirably fills this role, and is a perfect introduction to the genre. Instead of twiddling your thumbs and waiting to pay your Activision-Blizzard overlords for a re-skinned Diablo II, play this thing.

Jacob's Matrix is a seven-day Rogue-like developed by Jeff Lait (of Fatherhood). It's also -- very un-Rogue-like, really.

Oh, it's a Rogue-like, all right; you're tooling around an algorithmically generated ASCII dungeon, moving in eight directions and fighting by running into things. But you're under time pressure: A song is playing, and if you don't finish the level by the time it ends, you lose. Maybe it's a "Musical Chairs-like."

What intrigues me particularly about Triangle Wizard is the aesthetics. For a start, it's a Rogue-like, with randomly-generated levels and a variety of character and class types, and spells or abilities triggered by alpha key presses. It uses the mouse, though; left-click to trigger the selected spell/action, and right-click to move to the moused-over location. But it's also a realtime game, with monsters acting continuously (although via fairly predictable AI), to the point that hammering on the mouse button at critical moments is essential. Diablo-esque, in a way.

Derek Yu has powers, he has the ability to kill a yak from 200 yards away with mind bullets, and he has the power to move you. He does perpetual service to a collective fetish amoungst the "hardcore" gamer population. It's an almost infatuated sense of comfort and awe at any 2D platforming space involving some kind of RPG or exploration dynamic. These are the millions who had a crush on that girl in third grade and thought, "I bet she feels like Super Metroid." Or Castlevania:Symphony of the Night if you were a bit older. Spelunky! is wet, it's a gamer's game, it exudes interesting decisions in a non-linear series complete with dank pixel art and emergent humor that teaches us something about ourselves. You know what I'm talking about, like that first time you threw the girl in order to pick up the bag of jewels, didn't mean to do that did you? And then she landed on the spikes? Or how about that time you got shot in the face by a totem statue that looked like Dick Cheney? You my friend, got spelunk'd.

So, yeah, here at PTT! we tend to be game design snobs and think about games from a design rather than implementation perspective (I spit on your novel and original visual effects! pfaugh! brainless eye-candy!). Yet occasionally, you run into something and say: Sweet! What a cool technical hack.

Asciiroth is, you know, a conventional Rogue-like, and while not a bad one, not the best either. BUT... It's developed using the Google Web Toolkit, which basically allows you to write in Java and compile it to Javascript, so it'll run in the browser without requiring the user to install desktop Java -- and then uses Adobe Air, which can take an AJAX application and turn it into a downloadable desktop app.

Legerdemain is clearly a rogue-like game; you play a single character ina fantasy world represented by ASCII graphics, with a variety of character classes and a levelling-up system. Yet in many ways, it defeats the expected tropes of the genre.

Fatherhood is a Rogue-like, at least to the degree of being a turn-based ASCII game, with a command-set that will be familiar to players of this type of game. However, it's certainly not a dungeon-crawler -- indeed, there's no combat whatsoever.

The basic set-up is this: on a randomly generated map (some pre-generated maps are also included), some number of rivers are about to flood their banks, and some number of forest fires are burning. You're a Dad, and your three kids are running about the game as well -- they start near you, but have a tendency to wander off. You can halt fires and floods by picking up boulders and moving them to choke points -- and you win by making sure that neither you nor any of your kids drowns or is burned to death.